


And Here I Still Stand

by Fangirlingmanaged



Series: United We. [1]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Hurt Tony Stark, Hurt/Comfort, Multi, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Needs a Hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-01
Updated: 2018-08-01
Packaged: 2019-06-19 18:52:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15516318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fangirlingmanaged/pseuds/Fangirlingmanaged
Summary: There’s a gaping wound in his chest, but through the pain he knows one thing. He has to get back home. Even if it’s just to see the wreckage that’s left.





	And Here I Still Stand

The android lady starts malfunctioning right before their ship hits Earth’s orbit. It starts with something small, her left wrist seems to come out of its socket. She snaps it back into place without a second thought, the loud  _ crack _ ! Making Tony flinch in his seat, but she doesn’t even bother to glance his way. It snaps out again in the next minute of so, and she lets it. Then, she hunches over the controls as a heavy spasm shudders her entire body. Tony opens his mouth to say something, but she snaps back into place in the next instant. Her posture clearly tells him to keep his mouth shut. But then it happens, and though he barely knows her, they have only shared one extremely fucked up traumatic experience, he can’t  _ not _ say anything when a hiss of what is clearly  _ pain _ makes its way past her lips as a section of her  _ head _ comes off. 

 

“Nebula,” he says quietly. 

 

“Shut up,” she snaps at her. She makes no move to compose herself, however, and that’s all Tony needs to see to know that she can’t. She needs help, and what is he good for if not with technology? Even if it is alien technology millennia away from anything he has ever taught himself. He opens his mouth to argue and another spasm overcomes her again. 

 

“All right, that’s it, budge over,” he says. He takes care to make his voice sound snappy. He remembers far too many conversations with Pepper, Rhodey and Rogers to know how  _ he  _ would react to people worrying about him. If he makes it about her well-being, chances are he might be tossed out into the atmosphere to burn to a crisp. “I’m the captain now.”

 

“You can barely stand,” she sneers at him. Her voice sounds out of breath, and it reminds him of the way he’d felt when the palladium had crawled its way up his throat. How hard it had been, those last few days when he had been so sure he wouldn’t make it, to keep the pain at bay. Keep it hidden because it wasn’t as important as taking care of his affairs. “And you don’t know how to pilot this ship.”

 

Tony looks at the controls near his chair, he had taken what he had assumed was the co-pilot’s seat for this very reason, and studies them for a moment. He had been silently observing her during their trip, and with the smallest hesitation pulled the lever on his left. The display in front of him lights up a little brighter; hers, dimmers. He turns to give her a grin and finds two obsidian eyes glaring daggers at him. For a second he’s damn sure he’s about to be tossed out but then there’s another  _ snap _ and though he can’t see it, he knows something else has malfunctioned. 

 

“I’m a fast learner,” he says, averting any mention of her current situation. He pushes the lever a little, feels the ship jolt forward a little fast, and hopes that they might reach their destination soon. Nebula had locked in the ship’s coordinates to someone she called Rocket, said it was the only signature of her companions she could trace, and thus they had gotten out of Titan as soon as she had been able to pry Tony away from the ground. He’s ashamed to admit he had been crippled by grief for what he felt was a long time. The illogical part of him drowned in anger and pain had insisted that he stay there, that he try to collect all the pieces of the kid so that he could put them back together. He’d tried to fight her, Nebula, when she’d physically taken him off the ground and onto the  _ Milano _ . 

 

She opens her mouth for a retort, but then the spasms that had been interspersed before come back all together in something like seizure. Her eye, the one still attached to her, rolls around her head. Her neck snaps sideways at an unnatural angle; the only thing holding her steady is the seat belt criss-crossed on her chest. 

 

“Hold on!” He calls out, the ship jolting as he pushes it forward a little more. “Nebula, just hold on. We’re almost there, come on!” The last part he growls it at the engine. He refuses to let this happen. He will not lose anyone else he might call an ally. Even if it’s someone he has barely met. 

 

He’s not entirely sure what he’s doing, or where the fuck he’s going for that matter, but still he tries his best to navigate through the different layers of his home planet. And for the first time in forever actually sighs in relief when clouds give way to green. He narrows his eyes, manages a quick curse before the ship hurls down a thick patch of trees. He closes his eyes, thinks  _ it’d be just my luck to get killed by wakandan shields and not fucking Thanos _ before the ship crashes down onto the mud. 

 

“Huh,” he says out loud. A small smidge of himself is honest to God incredibly pissed that he’s not dead. Then, reality crashes into him and he unsnaps the seatbelt holding him in place. “Shit, Nebula,” her neck lies at an unnatural angle and now both her wrists are snapped out of place. “Fuck,no no no,” he stumbles off his seat and onto the armrest of her chest. There are sparks coming off the section of her head where her eye popped out. 

 

It’s something around ten, fifteen minutes later when he hears a rustling outside the ship. He’s managed to get her off her seat and into an upright position, but the twinge in his chest where the nanites haven’t exactly healed him yet makes him breathless with every step he forces them to take. The spasms have calmed, but she’s still very much in pain. She makes a low whining noise in the back of her throat that Tony knows intimately as the sound of someone who is trying very hard not to scream. 

 

“This way!” A female voice says outside the ship in an accent that he recognizes. With an deep breath, he forces some of the nanites to move from repairing his wound onto his arm. What little Thanos left of his weapons wrap round his hand as he maneuvers Nebula a step behind him. He bites back a curse as a wet feeling comes out through his shirt. The pain in his chest is near unbearable, and it might be were it not for the fact that he’s had his chest blown open already. “It is some kind of alien ship. Nothing like what we have seen.”

 

“Shall we destroy it?”

 

“For the sake of what is left of Wakanda—“

“Wait!” Another voice screams, a little fainter than the rest, this one male. It’s a high pitched and a little nasal. Tony grunts as he takes another step forward; readying for a fight. 

 

“Rocket,” Nebula says faintly and attempts to take another step forward. Tony bites back a curse as he’s forced to move too. “Have—to—tell—“

 

“Okay, okay,” Tony grunts. “We’re going, see? Slow, okay? We’ll make it there,” he’s trying to convince her as much as he’s trying to convince herself. They make their way, painfully, to the back door of the ship. Nebula hits a panel as they go, and a ramp opens up. Tony is momentarily blinded by the brightness of the sun but forces himself to keep his pace. 

 

“Raccoon—“the same female voice growls from outside. 

 

“They’re my friends,” the male voice growls back. A more animalistic sound. 

 

“what guarantee do we have that—“

 

“Let them through,” yet another voice says. This one lighter and sounding, somehow, more innocent than the others. Relief floods Tony like air. He pushes them, more than they should in their state, to walk down the ramp. 

 

“Princess—“

 

“Help us,” he manages to say once they’re standing outside. In his peripheral, he sees the Dora standing, spears at the ready. He has no time to really focus, however, as Nebula’s weight becomes more taxing and the wet feeling on his clothes spreads. “Please.”

 

“Stark?!”

 

“Oh my God, Tony—“

 

Tony feels his knees buckle under their collective weight. There are arms wrapped around him the next second, Nebula’s weight is taken from him, and for a second he panics. He’s in too much pain, blinded by the sun and too overwhelmed to think straight. He panics. He pushes against the arms holding her and try to turn. 

 

“Nebula,” he mumbles. “Help her. She’s—“

 

“We’ve got her,” another voice says. “Tones, you’re safe. We’ve got you.”

 

Tony turns, spotting Rhodey in the throng and the relief returns. Rhodes has a serious expression as he nods. Takes a step forward and Tony finds himself finally,  _ finally,  _ noticing his surroundings. He glances down at the arms around him: wrapped in a dark navy material, long artist fingers, the backs of the hands freckled in blink-and-you-missed them, wouldn’t-see-them-unless-you-pay-attention little spots. When he turns his head he knows to angle it upward, his mind cannot compute the bristly hairs on the face, but the eyes. Oh, the eyes are familiar enough. 

 

“Tony—“the voice says when he finally focuses. 

 

Which is too bad because that is the exact moment the pain in his chest flares up again and his eyes roll back into his head. 


End file.
